Potential of mathematical model-based decision making to promote sustainable performance of agriculture in developing countries: A review article

In developing countries like Ethiopia, agriculture takes the leading role in the economy and enhancing the efficiency of agriculture resource decision making remains essential to eradicate extreme poverty through promoting sustainable agricultural production. Recent economic growth efforts in agriculture dependent economies are aggravating to further natural resource degradation, environmental pollution, and climate change. One of the main challenges is the use of inefficient conventional land use decision-making. Conventional land use decision making refers to the practice of traditional land use decision-making, which is inefficient to capture spatial and temporal land use decision dynamics and trade-offs. This paper reviewed existing literatures on decision-making models in agriculture targeting to document the potential of mathematical model-based decision making to enhance the sustainable performance of agriculture in developing countries compared to the existing conventional agricultural practice decision approach. From over 400 literatures collected from the Google Scholar search engine; 63 articles were selected for the synthesis. The literatures were screened through inclusion and exclusion criteria. Literatures that used any mathematical model as a decision support tool in agriculture and related sectors, included a clear description of the model type, aim of the study, the key attribute characterizing the application of the model, decision support system, and output were included in the review. The synthesis result uncovered that with varying degrees of impact, flexibility, and complexity, mathematical model-based land use decision making has greater potential to enhance sustainable performance of agriculture and resource use efficiency in developing countries.